Variance for Petry’s fence moving to board

Wednesday

Jan 28, 2009 at 12:01 AMJan 28, 2009 at 5:31 PM

The quest of Roscoe officials to attain 100 acres in the Chicory Ridge subdivision for parkland continued Tuesday as the village’s zoning committee looked over three of nine terms in an agreement Petry Development would like to have approved before the donation of a parcel of land and a pond.

Betsy Lopez Fritscher

The quest of Roscoe officials to attain 100 acres in the Chicory Ridge subdivision for parkland continued Tuesday as the village’s zoning committee looked over three of nine terms in an agreement Petry Development would like to have approved before the donation of a parcel of land and a pond.

A major point of contention is a request by developer Jeff Petry to allow him to keep the 8-foot fence surrounding his 23-acre residence on Gleasman Road. A village ordinance states fences must be no higher than 6 feet.

The committee showed its hand by saying it would not be in the village’s best interest to pursue litigation to force Petry to reduce the height of his fence by two feet.

“It boils down to how much we’re willing to spend ... to have him cut it down,” said Trustee Dave DeCarlo, who asked Trustee Sharon Atkins what the fence looked like.

The Zoning Board of Appeals previously recommended that the variance be denied as well.
“I think he should comply; I just don’t think he will,” Trustee Stacy Mallicoat said.

With dozens of residents in attendance, Atkins told the committee, composed of village trustees and village President Dave Krienke, that she went to Petry’s property with the village’s code enforcement officer when Petry was erecting the fence last year. She said Petry was told the fence was not in compliance.

“He continued to construct the fence and completed it anyway,” Atkins said. “There was a lot of wood out there, but there were only a few sections that were completed and up.”

Atkins did little to hide her frustration with DeCarlo, telling him that she believed by allowing Petry a variance that the village would be setting a precedent for other cases when residents want to break village code. She contended that the developer should have stopped building when the village told him to stop.

“We’re ... saying well, if you have something to offer in return, you can do whatever you want, and we’ll overlook it,” she said. “I just don’t think that’s the way we should be conducting business.”

Chicory Ridge resident Patrick Urban pleaded with the committee to think about the good that could come from accepting the parkland and giving Petry a variance.

“Can we OK his fence, even though he was rude, improper and flinging the ordinances in the village’s face, for the purpose that the land gets donated to the village?” Urban said.

As Prairie Ridge resident Tim Slocum stood to present signatures to the board taken from a survey in several of the village’s subdivisions, Krienke interjected and called “point of order.”

Krienke said he believed Slocum was going to talk about the pond in Chicory Ridge, though Slocum said he was not. The village president reiterated that each zoning request would have to stand on its own merit.

“I don’t want to get too far out on this thing because it’s not about the pond, it’s about a variance,” Krienke said. “We need to base the variance on its merits and nothing else.”
“That’s how this ties in,” Slocum replied after being interrupted several times.

Resident Becky Johnson then took the floor and asked the board to recognize the difficulties residents who live in the subdivisions have had with the developer and to stop giving Petry the platform to continue tying the village’s hands.

“He holds the village and its people hostage,” she said. “Is there any way to go back and amend this agreement?”

While residents view Petry as being to blame for the 1989 pre-annexation agreement that granted the developer 1,000 acres for Chicory Ridge, Sagewood, Clearwing, Crystal Hills, Hawks Pointe and the proposed Denali residential subdivisions, it was the Village Board at the time that signed off on the agreement, village Zoning Administrator Sheryl Crowley said.

After much back-and-forth discussion between trustees and the village president, the committee voted to move the fence variance to the Village Board, map an amendment to change a district from commercial to residential and to give Petry back land in Hawks Pointe that had been set aside for parkland. Under the pre-annexation agreement in 1989 and the annexation agreement of 1993, the developer is not required to set aside parkland in the subdivisions he builds.

“We offered this land up as a means of healing wounds,” Petry Development Vice President Mike Dunn said.

“We realize that every one of the items have to be voted on in their own particular and singular merits and when it’s all done with, we’re going to propose that they accept a donated park.”

Dunn said that the company is not looking for acceptance of all of the terms of the agreements, it was trying to help the village and Petry was looking for privacy by erecting his fence.

“We’re just trying to do what’s right for everybody.”

Staff writer Betsy López Fritscher can be reached at bfritsch@rrstar.com or at 815-987-1377.

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